Washington: Climate scientists on Thursday said that the year 2014 is almost certain to be the warmest year on Earth since 1880.

The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for October 2014 was the highest on record for the month, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Beating the previous record of 2003 by 0.01 degrees Celsius, the combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for October 2014 was at 14.74 degrees Celsius or 0.74 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 14.0 degrees Celsius.

It also marked the 38th consecutive October with a global temperature above the 20th century average.

The last below-average global temperature for October occurred in 1976, NOAA found.

Continuing on its track for the warmest year on record, the global average temperatures for October as well as January-to-October period were both the highest, surpassing the previous records set in 1998 and 2010.

According to the NOAA, five of the past six months have been recorded warm for their respective months; July was the fourth warmest.

The October global land temperature was the fifth highest on record at 1.05 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 9.3 degrees Celsius.

Warmer-than-average temperatures were evident over most of the global land surfaces, except for large parts of central Asia.

NOAA said record warmth was notable across a large area of southern South America, the US western coastal regions, Far East Russia, parts of southern and southeastern Asia, much of southern and western Australia, and parts of southern Europe.

The October global sea surface temperature was 0.62 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 15.9 degrees Celsius, the highest on record for October and the sixth consecutive month with a record high monthly global sea surface temperature.

This also ties with June 2014 for the third highest ocean temperature departure on average for any month; the second highest occurred in August 2014 and the highest occurred just last month.

While record warmth was observed in parts of every major ocean basin, nearly all of the Indian Ocean was record warm or much warmer than average, said NOAA.

According to NOAA's Climate Prediction Centre, there is close to a 60 per cent chance for El Nino to officially develop across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean during the Northern Hemisphere.